Sunday morning, usually a day of rest. Maybe a little light housecleaning, lunch with the family, some football or racing depending on the season. Not today though. Today brings
Oh the humanity.
For pictures, see my gallery. Let’s just say we had an unexpected visitor:
The highlights of the day, all times approximate and in Central Standard Time.
9:45 AM I leave to go pick up Drizztdj
10:10 AM Yahoo! Maps sends me the wrong way and I drive around looking for his house
10:15 AM I find the house
10:25 AM We pick up a dozen Krispy Kremes (thanks Drizz), or as Al calls them, “Crack for drinkers”
10:55 AM We make a couple of wrong turns trying to find the bar, but eventually find the righ road.
11:00 AM We arrive at the bar and notice Al and Brad (Al’s longtime friend) and Brad’s wife just pulling in at the same time.
Al then hands me a gift: A bottle of Oban scotch! He had to go to two different stores to find it (it’s pretty hard to find). (Thanks 
). How awesome is that? I suddenly feel like a putz.
11:03 AM We find the bar after having to enter through the bowling alley.
11:05 AM First round of drinks is ordered. I honestly cannot remember if I have ever had a drink before noon. Ever. Today I am driving, so I have to make good time in order to allow a little time to recover. SoCo #1 is going down the hatch.
11:07 AM Monkeyboy, Jr. makes an appearance and camps out on the bar.
11:10 AM Al informs us that he and Brad came to the bar the night before. Al is already a regular and is on a first name basis with the bartender.
11:15 AM The bartender offers us a deal: Every time the Eagles score he’ll give us $1 shots of Apple Pucker. Every time the Vikings score he’ll give us $1 shots of Grape Pucker. We wholehartedly agree.
11:20 AM We hang around the bar talking about poker, people and life in general
11:35 AM Chad from Pokerama-rama shows up.
11:40 AM SoCo #2
11:50 AM Al calls
12:00 PM Vikings at Eagles starts
12:15 PM Apple pucker #1, down the hatch
12:45 PM Apple pucker #2, down the hatch
1:00 PM Grape pucker #1
1:04 PM We passed on Apple pucker #3 figuring that at this rate we’d be wasted just from the Apple Pucker shots
1:20 PM SoCo #4 (hmm…what happened to #3?)
3:15 PM The Vikings are finally put out of their misery and the Eagles move on to face Atlanta in the NFC finals
3:30 PM We start a poker game with a guy that Al found. The bartender conveniently has a set of chips and cards behind the bar. We start up a $10 winner take all tourney in the back of the bar. The other guy had a tendency to fold his unraised big blind. If he didn’t do that he tended to fold his hand on the flop. To no bet. As in, if he didn’t hit, he just folded. The first few times we tried to tell him that he didn’t have to, but he did anyway. He said he plays at Pokerrom quite a bit. (Note to self: Go play at Pokerroom.)
There was very little limping in this game because Al declared “No LIMPING” and “No Min Raises!”. Despite recent advice by the pros, the Hammer was played with reckless abandon. I won with it once, and had to fold it once to a big reraise.
The other guy busts out shortly. Al was next a little bit later. Then the guy asks Al if he wants to play some darts and Al says sure. As Al goes to the bar the guy pulls out his own darts and starts talking about how he’s a league champion. Al decides he doesn’t want to play, which ended up not being a big deal because the dart machine broke.
I somehow ended up short stacked. I was leading for a while, then I looked down and couldn’t figure out where my chips went. This required me to make some moves. Drizz ended up busting me and it was down to him and Chad.
They went back and forth for a while with Chad going from short stack to about even. It was then that Drizz got the Hammer and gave it up to a big bet on the flop.
Then in what could only happen in a blogger game, he got the Hammer again the next hand. He pushed and was called. Opps. Of course, he knew he was fine because of the power of the Hammer and sure enough, the three 9s on the board just served to fill him up when a 2 spiked on the river. He bought a round for the group and all was well.
Of course, then he made cardinal mistake #1: He called his wife to see how she was doing. We were getting ready to start game #2 when he came back and said that she was a little stressed and that it would be in his best interests to get back home. See, he wouldn’t have had that problem if he hadn’t called. 
6:00 PM I drop Drizz off and I’m on my way home
Overall I had a great time. It wasn’t a drag out drinking fest that we’ve all read about in the past. I’m glad that it turned out that way (partially so I didn’t have to spend all day tomorrow with a killer headache after puking all night, that is assuming I survived in the first place). It gave us a lot of time to talk which was great. We sat around, had a few drinks and had a great time. We also played a little poker which was also a lot of fun.
While not quite Vegas, the Minneapolis stop of the poker bloggers meetups was a blast. Everybody was cool in “real life” and we got along great. We didn’t even discuss poker all that much which was good too, after all there’s more to each of us than just poker. Drizz and I got to talk quite a bit during the drive to and from the bar which was good. It was great to put a face to the the names and writings. I’m sure the other guys will fill in other details, so go read them for the full picture.
I’d like to thank Al for the scotch, I’ll be thinking of you every time I take a drink. Also, thanks for making a trek to the frozen tundra in the midst of the coldest weather we’ve had in years. Thanks to Drizz and Chad for coming along too, it wouldn’t have been complete without you.
MONKEYBOY JR!
I wanted to be Monkeyboy, especially after Al explained where he’s been…
Thanks again for picking me up. I had a blast!! Next time I’ll take the “don’t call the wife” advice. Sigh.
That was cool. Looks like y’all had a fun time. Al has that ability… If it wasn’t the middle of winter, I would have come along!
Very, very fun.